Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Obama administration successfully pushed this issue past the election, but the investigation continues. The major questions remain unanswered divided roughly into three categories;
1) Why wasn't there better protection at the compound?
2) Why weren't teams in a better position to respond and why did it take so long to order the teams to act?
3) Why did the Obama administration push blame on a video, and why was the video blamed for as long as it was, when it seems very clear they knew it was a terrorist attack from the beginning?

These questions must be answered, and depending on the answers, there should be consequences.

"New Pentagon details show that the first U.S. military unit arrived in Libya more than 15 hours after the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was over, and four Americans, including the ambassador, were dead.
...
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his top military adviser were notified of the attack about 50 minutes after it began and were about to head into a previously scheduled meeting with President Barack Obama. The meeting quickly turned into a discussion of potential responses to the unfolding situation in Benghazi...

But there have been persistent questions about whether the Pentagon should have moved more rapidly to get troops into Libya or had units closer to the area as the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America approached. In particular, there was at least a 19-hour gap between the time when Panetta first ordered military units to prepare to deploy - between midnight and 2 a.m. local time in Tripoli - and the time a Marine anti-terrorism team landed in Tripoli, which as just before 9 p.m.
...
The attack began at about 9:40 p.m. local time in Benghazi. Less than 20 minutes later, the U.S. military began moving an unarmed drone to a position over Benghazi, so it could provide real time intelligence to the CIA team on the ground. The CIA team went to aid the Americans at the consulate. The drone arrived shortly after 11 p.m. By 11:30 p.m., a CIA team was able to get all the Americans out of the compound.
...
Between midnight and 2 a.m., Panetta began to issue verbal orders, telling two Marine anti-terrorism teams based in Rota, Spain, to prepare to deploy to Libya, and he ordered a team of special operations forces in Central Europe and another team of special operations forces in the U.S. to prepare to deploy to a staging base in Europe.

As the military units begin moving, just before dawn, the Americans in Benghazi, who were now at the CIA base less than a mile away from the consulate, again came under attack around 5:15 a.m. when five mortars were fired at the building. Two missed, but three hit, killing two CIA security officers who were on the roof.

The Americans fired back and soon afterward fled the CIA base for the airport. By 10 a.m., they had flown out, heading to Tripoli. Shortly after 7 p.m., the Americans, including the bodies of the four dead, were flown out of Tripoli on a military aircraft.

Not until just before 8 p.m., however, did the first U.S. military unit arrive in the region, as the special operations team landed at Cigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily. An hour later, the Marine team landed in Tripoli."